In nursing school, they teach us the stages of grief. Next to the neurological system, that is another area that I didn't pay much attention to. I'm not good with grief. Not good with sadness. Not good with death. I work in an ICU where people do die on occasion, despite our best efforts to save them. But at the slightest inkling of someone needing a shoulder to cry on, my shoulder runs off to call in the chaplain's shoulder. I don't handle it well. I've tried speculating on the reasons why - nothing specific has ever come to mind. My family has never been filled with people who know how to support another emotionally. Oh, you're having a hard time? Well, here ... let me call in someone better who can help you because I have too much undealt with shit that helping you might stir up in me and I'm not ready for that. That about sums it up. I guess we're notorious for not addressing our issues. I know I am. Sometimes feigning ignorance is better than accepting you went through things that no person should. That is until it bites you in the ass later.
I started seeing a new therapist this week. She's the 3rd one this year. I guess maybe I'm still searching for my next Robyn. Robyn was my therapist as a teenager. She was amazing. While I was never very forthcoming with anything, she always knew the exact way to pull it out of me and the exact way to make me face things that I had been trying to so very hard to forget. There was a point at which things got to be really bad, and for whatever reason, I stopped seeing her and was placed on medication instead. That's probably not exactly how it happened, but it is how I remember seeing it. I remember thinking that maybe it was better for me to go back to keeping all that stuff inside. Obviously it was too much for anyone to handle so it was better just pushed back under the rug. I've since learned that that is the worst possible thing to do, and I see the effects of it every day.
So anyhow, grief. Yes. Stages. They were developed by Kubler-Ross and are as follows:
It's really hard to not have some degree of denial while waiting for a 2nd opinion. There's a large place in me that is holding out hope for an alternative diagnosis. At this point, most anything is preferred. Cancer? Bring on the chemo! Denial and anger present themselves together a lot of the time. This can't be true! What did I ever do?! Why me?? That sums it up. It's hard for me to be around people who are telling me to fight it. Fight what? How can you tell me to fight something that I'm still in denial over? How can I fight something that I feel might just be non-existent in the first place. I get very defensive and short with those close to me because of it. It's in my nature to be argumentative and defiant - at least in words and thoughts. I don't want someone telling me "it's ok, you can still do this job without use of your arms." Who says I won't have use of my arms? It's not final yet. Nothing is final yet.
I find it's easier for those around me to plan for my ultimate disability than for me to accept it as really happening. It's easy for them to say "it'll be alright" when they're not the ones slowly feeling themselves slip away. I've been a nurse for 5 years. It's what I know. It's how I identify and validate myself. In 10 months, I've almost completely lost the ability to hold a patient on their side, slide them up in bed, start an IV, put on gloves that actually fit, tear tape, cut gauze, and most recently, tie a tourniquet. Tying a fucking tourniquet. Who knew that after all that training, that would be the one thing to put me over the edge. That would be the one thing to make me wonder what good am I, then? Writing is a joke, typing becomes irritating, and some days I have trouble holding a full glass of water.
I'm told that in time, as the grief model says, I'll soon find acceptance of this. But how soon is too soon? How soon is acceptance really viewed as just giving in? Is it wrong to hold out in hopes that maybe another doctor will find something different, something more acceptable?
I started seeing a new therapist this week. She's the 3rd one this year. I guess maybe I'm still searching for my next Robyn. Robyn was my therapist as a teenager. She was amazing. While I was never very forthcoming with anything, she always knew the exact way to pull it out of me and the exact way to make me face things that I had been trying to so very hard to forget. There was a point at which things got to be really bad, and for whatever reason, I stopped seeing her and was placed on medication instead. That's probably not exactly how it happened, but it is how I remember seeing it. I remember thinking that maybe it was better for me to go back to keeping all that stuff inside. Obviously it was too much for anyone to handle so it was better just pushed back under the rug. I've since learned that that is the worst possible thing to do, and I see the effects of it every day.
So anyhow, grief. Yes. Stages. They were developed by Kubler-Ross and are as follows:
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
It's really hard to not have some degree of denial while waiting for a 2nd opinion. There's a large place in me that is holding out hope for an alternative diagnosis. At this point, most anything is preferred. Cancer? Bring on the chemo! Denial and anger present themselves together a lot of the time. This can't be true! What did I ever do?! Why me?? That sums it up. It's hard for me to be around people who are telling me to fight it. Fight what? How can you tell me to fight something that I'm still in denial over? How can I fight something that I feel might just be non-existent in the first place. I get very defensive and short with those close to me because of it. It's in my nature to be argumentative and defiant - at least in words and thoughts. I don't want someone telling me "it's ok, you can still do this job without use of your arms." Who says I won't have use of my arms? It's not final yet. Nothing is final yet.
I find it's easier for those around me to plan for my ultimate disability than for me to accept it as really happening. It's easy for them to say "it'll be alright" when they're not the ones slowly feeling themselves slip away. I've been a nurse for 5 years. It's what I know. It's how I identify and validate myself. In 10 months, I've almost completely lost the ability to hold a patient on their side, slide them up in bed, start an IV, put on gloves that actually fit, tear tape, cut gauze, and most recently, tie a tourniquet. Tying a fucking tourniquet. Who knew that after all that training, that would be the one thing to put me over the edge. That would be the one thing to make me wonder what good am I, then? Writing is a joke, typing becomes irritating, and some days I have trouble holding a full glass of water.
I'm told that in time, as the grief model says, I'll soon find acceptance of this. But how soon is too soon? How soon is acceptance really viewed as just giving in? Is it wrong to hold out in hopes that maybe another doctor will find something different, something more acceptable?
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